Post by krassandbernie on Mar 29, 2018 16:48:55 GMT -5
This has been going on for quite some time now; and has happened to me more than I care to remember. It was recently brought to my attention (middle of February) by a friend of mine who stumbled upon this post on Facebook; and sent me a screen shot of it. My friend is a resin caster as well; and knows all too well how crappy it can be when no one bothers to look out for you. As it turned out, I knew the guy who made this Facebook post; and even had his e-mail address; so I contacted him directly. He was in the process of buying the three Willys pickup cabs in the first photo below; and was waiting for them to arrive in the mail. After some prodding I finally got out of him who made the castings; which I will get to shortly. I did not want to jump the gun and claim that the '41 Willys pickup cab (on the far right) was indeed a direct copy of mine based on this one photo; so I asked him if he'd be willing to e-mail me some better quality photos when the pickup cabs arrived. He honored my request and e-mailed the following photos over.
I instantly knew that the '41 Willys pickup cab was without a doubt a direct copy of the pickup cab that I mastered and cast. (I was wondering why sales had dropped off substantially since coming out with it 4-5 years ago!). One of the dead give-aways that this was not simply one of my old castings was the fact that it looks like it was dropped in a fireplace; and ALL of the flash was still present.....i.e. not cleaned up. I have photos of my master from start to finish; and I have not seen a single other resin caster bother to put the ribbed detail into the back of their Willys pickup cab (which isn't seen when the model is built) like I did.......being as anal as I am for detail. There are (or were) a couple other Willys pickups on the market in resin over the years. The back window and ribbed panel in the back of the cab actually came from the AMT Willys pickup; but that was the only thing the AMT pickup cab donated as far as my master goes. I could point out a list of other things that I did when making my pickup like the belt line from scratch, starting with the new tooled Revell '41 Willys coupe body (which no one has to date to my knowledge), leaving the (technically incorrect rocker panel from the coupe body in tact), to the Monogram '40 Ford pickup donating the rear portion of it's roof, back of the cab, and rear portion of the door window frame work.........just to name a few.
Anyway, judging by the first photo it is clear that the '37 and '39 Willys pickup cabs were also made from my '41 Willys pickup!
It turns out that good old Don Thune strikes again! You won't find these Willys pickups listed on his web site! He's been selling them privately for who knows how long now. To my knowledge, I've had the majority of my old hood line up (roughly 100 different hoods), my corrected '33 Willys front end, the pro stock '79 Ford Fairmont kit that I cast for my friend Scott Popham (one of the sponsors for our contest); and now my '41 Willys pickup cab copied by people who feel that they should be the ones making money off of my hard work. It is getting to the point where I am having a hard time paying my bills or even putting food on the table. This is what I do for a living; and I have enough problems on my own! LOL!
So, if you guys would pay attention to who you buy from and what you buy in the cottage industry it might benefit you too so that you don't contribute to guys like me going out of business (NOT THAT I AM!); or the amount of second hand garbage castings you'll be receiving.
Thanks again for those of you who continue to support me!
Ed
Here are a couple photos of one of my castings:
I instantly knew that the '41 Willys pickup cab was without a doubt a direct copy of the pickup cab that I mastered and cast. (I was wondering why sales had dropped off substantially since coming out with it 4-5 years ago!). One of the dead give-aways that this was not simply one of my old castings was the fact that it looks like it was dropped in a fireplace; and ALL of the flash was still present.....i.e. not cleaned up. I have photos of my master from start to finish; and I have not seen a single other resin caster bother to put the ribbed detail into the back of their Willys pickup cab (which isn't seen when the model is built) like I did.......being as anal as I am for detail. There are (or were) a couple other Willys pickups on the market in resin over the years. The back window and ribbed panel in the back of the cab actually came from the AMT Willys pickup; but that was the only thing the AMT pickup cab donated as far as my master goes. I could point out a list of other things that I did when making my pickup like the belt line from scratch, starting with the new tooled Revell '41 Willys coupe body (which no one has to date to my knowledge), leaving the (technically incorrect rocker panel from the coupe body in tact), to the Monogram '40 Ford pickup donating the rear portion of it's roof, back of the cab, and rear portion of the door window frame work.........just to name a few.
Anyway, judging by the first photo it is clear that the '37 and '39 Willys pickup cabs were also made from my '41 Willys pickup!
It turns out that good old Don Thune strikes again! You won't find these Willys pickups listed on his web site! He's been selling them privately for who knows how long now. To my knowledge, I've had the majority of my old hood line up (roughly 100 different hoods), my corrected '33 Willys front end, the pro stock '79 Ford Fairmont kit that I cast for my friend Scott Popham (one of the sponsors for our contest); and now my '41 Willys pickup cab copied by people who feel that they should be the ones making money off of my hard work. It is getting to the point where I am having a hard time paying my bills or even putting food on the table. This is what I do for a living; and I have enough problems on my own! LOL!
So, if you guys would pay attention to who you buy from and what you buy in the cottage industry it might benefit you too so that you don't contribute to guys like me going out of business (NOT THAT I AM!); or the amount of second hand garbage castings you'll be receiving.
Thanks again for those of you who continue to support me!
Ed
Here are a couple photos of one of my castings:
It's an interweb thing.....